With or Without You
by MuchTooHighACost
Summary: Late S3. Kate has a tough time dealing with Juliet's presence in the camp.


**Hope you enjoy my first Lost fanfic! All feedback is greatly appreciated.

* * *

**

The tarp crinkled as Kate pulled it back, making a loud crackling sound that she'd grown accustomed to hearing these past three months. She smiled. Everything was just as she'd left it. The yellowed beams of the flashlight revealed her sleeping bag and blanket, both rumpled and tossed aside in week-old haste. The battery-operated lantern she used at night sat propped up next to her pillow; beside that, some fashion magazine she'd managed to keep to herself from Sawyer's stash. Leaves littered the tarp on the ground, probably blown in and never cleaned out. She never spent that much time in here, to be honest.

Kate turned on the lantern and shuffled over to the suitcase in the corner where she kept her clean clothes. All just as she'd left them. Pants on one side, shirts on another, underwear wedged somewhere in between. She changed into a comfortable pair of jeans that had become her favorite. A tiny rip in one knee and a hole in the back pocket. They weren't hers before the crash, but she'd found them in the luggage and they were her size. She zipped them up and then slid into her thermal nightshirt. It was long overdue for a wash and she could smell her sweat on it, but she didn't care.

She stood in her tent, bending just a bit so her head didn't touch the top, and sighed. Now what? There had to be something else to do, some other problem that needed solving… but there was nothing. And it felt hollow. Panic started to set in, taco-night-type panic, the panic of being trapped, trapped in the middle of nowhere-

"Kate?"

She gasped, on instinct, and then recognized the voice. "Yeah?"

"May I come in?"

The wavering blue walls of the tent seemed to close in, holding her tighter, tighter. She stumbled outside and came face-to-face with a surprised Juliet, shuffling around in the sand. "I'll come out here. It's a mess in there," Kate said, laughing nervously.

"If you didn't want me to come in you could have just said so," Juliet said with that shrewd way she had, one that was neither offended nor judgmental. It made Kate crazy.

"Yeah, well, I haven't really had time to clean up," Kate retorted. "Been a little busy lately."

"I just wanted to talk," Juliet said, again maddeningly calm.

Kate studied her, looking for a reason to say no. _She helped you escape_, said a voice in the back of her mind. Kate chewed her fingernails, watching the even lines in Juliet's face for the slightest hint of… anything. Finally, after she'd convinced herself that this was a good idea, she nodded slowly, running a shaky hand through her curls. "Sure. Can we take a walk?"

X

The moon was light enough. Juliet had left her shoes back at camp, but Kate wore hers, just out of habit. They left two straight paths in the sand by the water.

"For someone who's just been left behind by the only people she's known for the last three years you don't seem too upset to me," Kate pointed out, breaking the silence.

"For someone who's just been held hostage, escaped, gone back, been captured again and been let loose you seem all right to me too," Juliet countered.

"I'm kind of used to it," Kate mumbled and walked faster.

"Oh, right," Juliet said, more to herself, and shook her head.

But Kate stopped walking. "How do you know all that stuff about us? About me? About Jack? How do you know it?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes, it _matters_," Kate said passionately. "There are things you know about me that no one else on this island knows."

Juliet spoke slowly. "Whose fault is that, Kate?"

"I don't believe you," Kate said through her teeth, switching gears. "I don't believe any of this crap you're feeding us. They just left you after three years?"

"You think your people wouldn't do the same thing?" she challenged.

"They _wouldn't_," Kate insisted, "we're in this together."

"You do realize that with one exception, every one of you who has died was killed by one of your own?"

"That's-that's not-"

"We're not killers, Kate," Juliet said adamantly.

"You shot that guy on your beach, right in front of me and Sawyer," Kate snapped.

"Are you complaining? Because in case you've forgotten, Kate, I'm the only reason you and Sawyer are here right now."

"Forgive me for not welcoming you with open arms," Kate breathed. "But you and your people held us in cages like _animals_. In case you've forgotten, Juliet."

Juliet took a deep breath and ran a hand over her blonde hair. "We're not bad people. We're not the kind of people who leave one of our own behind. I'm telling the truth, Kate."

"I don't believe you."

"Jack believes me."

"Jack-" Kate began, then stopped, choosing her words wisely. "Jack isn't always right."

Juliet cocked her head. "You've trusted his judgment on everything else up till now. What's changed?"

Kate gave an incredulous laugh. "Wh-what's changed? What hasn't?"

"What makes it so hard to trust me?" Juliet asked. "Is it because of-"

"Jack," Kate mumbled, nodding her head past Juliet's shoulder. She turned and saw Jack approaching them on the beach.

"Juliet, Kate," he acknowledged them as he came closer. "What are you guys doing?"

"Nothing," Kate answered hastily, looking out at the ocean.

"Just having some girl talk," Juliet supplied with a friendly smile. Kate wanted to slap it off her face. Girl talk?

Jack smiled, nodded. "Just wanted to make sure you didn't wander too far off or something, it's getting dark."

"We know," Kate snapped. "We're not gonna go into the jungle in the middle of the night or something…"

"Okay…" Jack said, furrowing his brow. "Um… either of you guys hungry?" The women shook their heads. "Okay. Well… I'm gonna head back to camp. Just don't go too far, all right?"

"We'll be back soon," Juliet promised.

Watching Jack's retreating figure, Kate asked, "Is this interrogation over?"

"Sorry?" Juliet asked, laughing a little bit.

"What the hell did you want to tell me? Did you just bring me out here to-"

"I wanted to apologize for betraying your trust. You're a good person, Kate, and your people are good people too. We're not very different."

Kate scoffed. "You don't know-" she stopped herself. "Just… forget it." She brushed past Juliet.

"I like you, Kate," Juliet called after her. "I like arguing with you." Kate turned around, exasperated, and let her finish. "I think we could be friends."

"Think a little harder," Kate replied. She continued back towards camp and didn't turn around this time.

X

She kicked some stuff around in her tent before she finally flopped down on her blanket with a frustrated groan. She hated Juliet. Hated her. She was a liar and faker and Kate didn't have much evidence to prove it but she didn't need any. She trusted her instincts, and her instincts told her that Juliet couldn't be trusted.

And all those things she "knew" about Jack… they were just facts. Facts that she'd read on a sheet once that were floating around in her head along with the names of the planets and the formula for converting Fahrenheit to Celsius. She didn't know what he smelled like or where he'd liked to sit in the hatch when it had been around. She didn't know the angel hair pasta story, she didn't know about letting the fear set in for five seconds.

To Juliet, Jack was just a number, another statistic. To her, Kate, he was… he was so many things, so many indefinable things that terrified her and made her feel safe all at once. He was Jack, he was the most _human _person she'd ever met, the most stubborn, the most good…

"Goddamnit!" she swore loudly, kicking her suitcase.

After a few seconds Hurley poked his head through her tent flap. "You okay?"

She started. "Yeah… just stubbed my toe."

Hurley narrowed his eyes. "While you were… lying down?"

"Forget about it," Kate sighed, rolling over.

"Are you okay?" Hurley asked one more time. "I mean I know it's been tough or whatever lately, like, getting captured and stuff… and then coming back and getting captured again or something… Anyway…"

"Hurley-" Kate sighed.

He held up his hands and shrugged. "Sorry… there's still some oatmeal left if you want any. I hear it's pretty good."

"I hate oatmeal," she mumbled, and she didn't think he heard her.

X

Sawyer had turned off the lantern and she couldn't stop crying. The darkness made it easier. Easier to cry, easier to fuck, easier to forget. The tears leaked out of her eyes and she knew she was crying for a lot of things. Some of it was left over from the hall, earlier, back at the Others' camp when she'd apologized to Jack for coming back for him.

Some of it was the frustration she'd felt during her conversation with Juliet an hour ago on the beach. She couldn't come up with a rational reason to hate her, but she'd felt a thousand irrational ones bubbling beneath the surface as she'd watched her talk, not really hearing the words.

Most of the tears came from what she'd seen at dinner. Jack and Juliet, huddled in Juliet's tent sharing their dinner together. Laughing, talking. Interacting in the intimate way close friends acted, friends who'd known each other for a very long time. He'd known her for a few weeks. Thoughts niggled at Kate, made her wonder what exactly had happened on that other island after she and Sawyer had escaped. After Juliet had helped them escape…

"Ugh!" she shouted. It was all so confusing!

Sawyer mistook her outcry for one of passion and ground against her harder. Wordlessly she unbuttoned her blue jeans and shut her eyes. The image of Jack and Juliet together was emblazoned on the insides of her eyelids. If she slept tonight, it would be all her saw.

"You copping out on me now, Freckles?" Sawyer asked, his teasing baritone rumbling against her collarbone.

_You broke his heart_, Juliet said in her memory, and Kate's eyes were green fire. She'd broken Jack's heart? Well she could do it again.

"Course not," she mumbled against Sawyer's lips, grinning, and she flipped him onto his back again.

For her, Sawyer was easy. Easy to like, easy to be friends with, easy to feel sympathy for, easy to screw out of jealousy. It was almost too easy, and regret lurked in her heart as Sawyer's rough hand slipped across her back to unclasp her bra.

The first time it had been out of fear, out of curiosity that gnawed away her rationality. This time it was pure abuse. Kate didn't want to believe she was doing this, using him like this. A friend, her best friend, really. But then she remembered the words he'd said to her, the words Jack could never say: _I love you. _And when she thought of it that way she didn't feel bad at all. She kissed a wet trail down Sawyer's dark chest and cleared her mind until she wasn't thinking of anything at all.


End file.
